| HOME | FORUM | TOURNAMENTS | DOWNLOAD | PAPERS | NEWS | ABOUT |
The 30/0 tournament with 10 rounds using the top 5 programs from the test run is now complete. There is room for maybe 2-3 more entrants before the web page gets too wide. If needed, group 2 etc. can be created easily.
Our gaming machine power supply has failed. We are using the netbook at present to maintain the site pending repair of the gaming rig. The Corsair TX850 seems to be the best choice for gaming grade video cards. Additional components are needed but the PSU is most pressing. We use gaming grade video cards so a high power PSU is compulsory.
Hard disk prices have gone crazy and shortages are hurting PC sales. We paid $79.97+tax+shipping for a ST2000DL003 two days before the floods. On November 17, 2011 the same disk is now $249+tax+shipping which more than triple our cost. See our IT page on hard disk reliability.
Phalanx is now back up, but the link to the original source is now dead. We will continue to search for a replacement copy. We have adequate space to host web sites, and we can integrate material.
We use the free Arena for testing and tournaments.
We have TBGEN available but we are not distributing it at this point. We are considering a new program using modern techniques that should be easier to use and maintain. There is a lot of old code to get around old 32-bit limitations that garrotes performance.
We have rolled out Windows Server 2008 R2 now that the server has enough resources. Storage is always a problem in the shop as we like to have multiple redundant copies to increase the probability of a successful recovery.
We need a new PSU for the server as the existing one seems to be losing its capacity too.
Revenue has been down sharply over the last 4 years due to the high unemployment. Funding to prop up the server has been hard to scrape up. We need more large capacity hard disks for tablebases.
Subscriptions are requested. We only want $5 a month so that we can better afford to buy equipment when it fails.
The spring 2011 postal strike and lockout was very costly. Revenue has been fragile the loss of mail-order income affected many here in Canada. Its simply the latest of a series of blows to the SMB economy. Mail order has represented over 80% of our income over the last 3 years.
Moving to 45 nm parts would have more power savings. Smaller 22 nm upcoming will be very low power. Now Intel has started on a 14 nm line, so power consumption can be ultra low.